Taiwan News Quick Take

Staff writer, with CNA

Fri, Mar 08, 2013 - Page 5

DIPLOMACY

Nation aids Syrian refugees

Taiwan has extended a helping hand to Syrian refugees who have fled to Jordan to escape the civil war in their country, Teng Sheng-ping (鄧盛平), assistant director-general of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ Department of West Asian and African Affairs, said yesterday. The ministry has donated two ambulances and 50 temporary housing units worth US$110,000 to help Jordan take care of the Syrian refugees at the request of the Jordanian government, Teng said. The Buddhist Compassion Relief Tzu Chi Foundation has also donated 190,000 second-hand garments, which the ministry has helped deliver to Jordan, he said. The civil war in Syria has left about 70,000 people dead or missing and has caused 600,000 to flee to neighboring countries, the ministry said.

LEISURE

TV taking a back seat

Television is no longer just something people watch, but becoming something people listen to as well, Internet search giant Google said. According to Google Taiwan, many people turn on their smartphones, tablets or laptops while watching TV, with their eyes constantly moving from screen to screen. In Taiwan, many people have the TV on as background and only pay attention to the screen when they hear things that interest them. Moreover, 79 percent of the mobile Internet users also search the Web after watching TV. Google Taiwan general manager Stanley Chen (陳俊廷) said that using the Internet to watch TV has also become a trend. He cited last year’s London Olympics as an example, saying that 10 percent of the network traffic related to the Games came from cellphone networks. Many also use YouTube to watch TV content, with the YouTube cellphone view rate growing by three times last year from the previous year.